Gotta love the genius of John Browning. Majority of the stresses are taken by the locked up bolt in the barrel extension attached directly to barrel. Receiver merely reacts the recoil of the moving internals.

1919a4 kits have not been available in such excellent condition and at such a low price for quite a while. Just too many excellent deals floating around. My money never had a chance.

Rhino_66;
Have fun with the build. I'm with you and just buy the RSP. There are 2 excellent providers of RSPs out there today - no need to make it yourself.

Don't narrow it down to 2 sideplates. There are several great RSP suppliers right now. Keith Gelsomino is another RSP manufacturer. It's identical to the ORF plate. We run group buys on his plates and I've heard nothing but good things about them. Engraving is also available for his plates.

IMHO, best plates available by far are from Sam Alvarez - T&S Manufacturing. His plates are head and shoulders above the rest. Sam is the only one I know of that heat treats the rear 2" of plate. There are others (Todd Grove and Keith Gelsomino) that are excellent and are about the same quality as each others, but Sam's top the list. ORF engraving is close to original but only close. Not sure who the several you are thinking of. Who else am I missing that is even in the same league and produces a marketable quantity of plates?

But, by all means, whoever you buy from, avoid Tapco plates - do they even still sell their RSP?.

BTW - Did Keith Gelsomino fix the feedway profile on his RSP? Haven't seen one lately.

....been busy building complete semi A4's
and perfecting my green/gray parkerizing....also busy
w/designs for new semi-auto versions of other
mg's....60-80 hr weeks for over a year caught up w/me
months ago....had no energy left to post on A4.com
site after 12-14 hr days....hope to be back there soon
w/pics of green park, perfect A4 rivets, A4 riveting
jigs, new engravings (Buffalo Arms 1919A4, Border
Cities Industries 1919A4, Savage 1928 Thompson), and
more....

I agree with Shortrnd in that you won't go wrong with using any one of the 3 RSPs I mentioned, I just believe Sam's plates are the best of the lot.

BTW - I think we all would agree that a must in 1919a4 build is using Black Bear rivets. I believe Weaponeer also runs a group buy on these from time to time. In the meantime here's Blackbear's website (his reputation is unparalleled);http://www.blackbear.netfirms.com/index.htm

All in all, don't take my word on it. I'd advise hanging around 1919a4.com and read and ask questions. They have a lot of tutorials on line, reviews of products, and a lot of very knowledgable guys and one girl that are more than willing to answer questions and share info.

P.S. for additional info on T&S Manufacturing (Sam Alvarez) go to 1919a4.com, click on discussion section and do a search by user name "Heavymg" and read on.....

Resistance is Futile ! Give yourself to the darkside, you know that true happiness is just a beltfed away.....................

Just ask me, I got a small pile of parts on my workbench and my internals at Hangman15's to be milled.
Wife is looking at me crazier everyday and 2 teenagers wondering wth has gotten into the old man ??????????? But my 15 y.o. daughter has said she wants to go to shoot it with me.........
Now how cool is that, a kid who actually wants to do something with her Dad ?

The names of 3 really good plates have been thrown out there. Those are the "several" that I was referring to. I know of no problems with Keith's feedways. In fact I don't think I've heard of any problems what so ever.

Todd at ORF has more engraving options than anyone else. I have 2 of his plates that are ready to be built. I'm very happy with them so far but I haven't built them yet..... so we will see. I have no doubt that they will be perfect.

I've never dealt with Sam Alvarez but I've heard very good things about him. If his plates are heat treated then I think they are a good deal. I didn't think there were any heat treated plates out there so this is good to know. Honestly, do you need a heat treated plate for a semi build? Probably not but it sure wouldn't hurt.

I don't want to push anyone one way or another because as you can see there are more than enough good options to go with. Just enjoy your build and the end result.